Of the many uncertainties facing the oil and gas producer in estimating the cost of his product, drilling cost estimates are the least certain. This is particularly true today and in the future due to the extreme depths at which oil and gas are currently being found (i.e., 18,000 to 25,000 ft.). It is usually true that the deeper the well, the more hard rock that has to be penetrated. It is also true that certain areas of this country that have shown oil and gas producing potential, have been avoided because of the extreme drilling costs insured by the large amount of rock that must be penetrated in order to reach the oil and gas deposits. The "overthrust" region in the western part of the country is an example. Current hard rock penetration rates rarely exceed 10 ft per hour, even when employing the most costly and sophisticated drill bits designed specifically for hard rock. Thus any means by which the penetration rate can be increased is desirable due to the economy of cost and time thus derived. The invention to be described provides such a device, capable of hard rock penetration rates of up to 1,000 ft. per hour!
The invention is embodied in a new type of shaped charge (often referred to as explosives with and without lined cavities) that has extraordinary hard rock penetrating power.
Shaped charges, lined and unlined, have been put to a variety of uses for at least 100 years. Currently, the widest use is in fracturing oil and gas bearing sandstone in order to increase the oil and gas production rates of wells. Therefore our patent application is confined to the new embodiment mentioned above where end use is centered on hard rock penetration. The new type of shaped charge device exhibits hard rock penetration of at least 5 times that of any known shaped charge and as much as 100 times that of current drilling methods.
The objects of the invention are as follows:
The principal object is a novel Blasting Device capable of improved rock penetration. Other objectives will be appreciated from the following detailed description of the invention: